


go venture far beyond the shores

by philthestone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, this is ancient but its the last day of the year so why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Henry's not actually sure if theyownrubber bands – Mary Margaret’s always had a thing for bullclips and Tupperware and somehow the obsoleteness of rubber bands had been translated over to her daughter’s household as well – and, also, because he’s not wholly sure Killian knows exactly what a rubber bandis.





	go venture far beyond the shores

**Author's Note:**

> Many Moons Ago i promised kristen i’d write her captain cobra and i started a four-parter fic and never finished any of the scenes except this one yeah that was cool anyhoops here is the Only Finished Scene, finally posted here Ages after i posted it on tumblr, bc its The Last Day Of 2017 so i gotta spring clean i guess. also its probably not canon compliant bc i dont know WHAT theyre doing anymore but!!! hope u enjoy!!!

p>“Okay,  
okay. Get this – a rubber band.”

Killian frowns at the upside-down video game controller in his hand. 

“Or we could just use one of Mom’s hair ties,” adds Henry, because he’s not actually sure if they _own_ rubber bands – Mary Margaret’s always had a thing for bullclips and Tupperware and somehow the obsoleteness of rubber bands had been translated over to her daughter’s household as well – and, also, because he’s not wholly sure Killian knows exactly what a rubber band is.

Oh, wait, there it is – his eyes are lighting up with recognition.

“You mean something akin to a spring mechanism,” he says thoughtfully, propping his arm up on his knee so that he can inspect the controller more closely. Henry is _mostly_ sure that Emma would be chill with them borrowing one of her hair ties. Mostly.

She kept complaining about losing them all the other day, though, so it’s really a hit-or-miss sort of thing.

“Where would we hook it onto, though, is the question,” says Killian, almost as though speaking to himself, still concentrating on the game controller with a sort of intensity that Henry can really, really appreciate, considering – well, _considering_. He looks a bit like Henry thinks _he_ must look when he’s doing math, sort of – out of his depth, maybe, because they’re sitting on the living room couch deconstructing a video game controller so that it can be operated with only one hand and at the end of the day, Henry’s not sure if the Overwhelmed Math Homework Look is because the concept of video games is still mostly novel or because Henry insisting that they can figure out a way for this to _work_ means a lot more than just handicap-proofing an electronic toy.

“I could make,” says Henry, “a really, _really_ bad pun right now.”

Killian’s really like, embraced this whole dad gig, Henry thinks, because instead of giving him the supremely unimpressed look that Henry sort of wants to give himself for even formulating the thought in his head, his mouth twitches and his Intense Math Homework Expression Number Fifteen slips away a bit to make way for a ridiculous twinkle in his eyes.

“Aye.”

Henry gives him the aforementioned supremely unimpressed look.

“I literally cannot believe you right now.”

“I believe you were the one who was about to impress us all with your wit, Henry.”

“Okay, first of all,” says Henry, because this is mostly better than glaring at the stubborn video game controller – who makes these things, anyway, huh? Shouldn’t there be some kind of law out there that makes them accessible to all sorts of people? – “ _first_ of all, I was just saying that I _could_ , not that I was going to.”

“Mm,” says Killian.

“It was like – an observation.”

“Mm,” says Killian.

“Secondly,” says Henry, “of all. We are the only two people in this room, so the only person I’d be impressing would be you, Captain Loser.”

“I assure you,” says Killian solemnly, “I would have been very impressed.”

“I can’t believe you set me up to make the world’s worst pun, _God_ ,” says Henry. “I’m turning into Mom.”

“An admirable thing to turn into, I think,” says Killian, because he’s just that sort of person, and even if Emma leaves her jacket hanging from the backs of chairs all the time and doesn’t keep the spice rack organized and thinks Pop Tarts are the greatest thing to grace God’s Green Earth since, like, the invention of Earth, Henry’s pretty sure that both Killian and himself would agree that admiration is warranted.

She’s due back from the station in about an hour, and Henry promised he’d do the dishes, but for some reason it feels really important that he – _they_ – see this to completion. 

It’s not even the concept of playing the video games, Henry knows, even though Mario Kart battles between the three of them would definitely be pretty cool. It’s just – it’s the principle of the thing.

He really wants this to work, because if it doesn’t, it’ll feel like they’re not doing something right, and Henry is determined that they do this right.

“So, back to our dilemma,” says Killian, tapping the side of the game controller with his thumb, the tarnished silver of his ring _clicking_ softly against the black plastic. “Where would we attach the spring?”

“Hair tie,” corrects Henry, and then makes a face. “Uh. The toggle?”

“And that’s this one, is it?” He holds the controller up again, and it’s sort of upside down, but that’s okay, because they’re _trying_.

“The little moveable thing, yeah,” says Henry. And then – “hang on, wait!”

He reaches over, to the coffee table where their motley assortment of weaponry – that’s what Henry had jokingly called them, and Killian had grinned – is strewn about, and starts rummaging. He pushes aside their small pile of popsicle sticks (courtesy of his schoolteacher grandmother), old parts of broken game controllers (he’s pretty sure one of them is a relic from New York), bobby pins (thanks, Aunt Belle), and a few scraps of coarse ship’s rope that they scrounged from the _Jolly_ to hold up a single paperclip. 

There only seems to be one of them, and Henry has a feeling it was already laying on the table before they started this endeavor and _probably_ belongs to someone, but oh well – he holds up the paperclip and grins.

“I’m a genius.”

Killian raises a single eyebrow.

“Really.”

“Seriously, look –” Henry grabs the game controller from Killian’s hand and bends the paperclip a bit with his teeth (Regina would be scandalized) and then twists it so that it fits over the grooved top of the toggle.

“Okay,” says Henry. “Okay, here. Hair tie attaches to the paper clip, which attaches to the toggle.”

“And the other end of the hair tie –”

“Goes here –”

There’s always a sort of thrill of excitement that always comes with Figuring Things Out, Henry thinks, especially important things, of which this is one. 

There’s always a sort of thrill, which usually means that Henry gets excited and also ahead of himself, diving right in, and doesn’t necessarily think before he acts. Regina once said in a Tone of Voice that he gets it from the Charming side of his family, which Henry privately thinks is probably the case, but right now, Henry is not thinking about Gramps’s “eyes closed head first” philosophy of life, because Henry just nearly reached out and grabbed Killian’s hook and something stopped him a half millimeter away.

It’s just – _Mom_ does it, but –

Without missing a beat, Killian lifts the hook up the rest of the half millimeter so that it presses against Henry’s palm and moves to line up beside the game controller.

He catches Killian’s eye, and grins, and Killian grins back, and Henry thinks that even if this stupid game controller doesn’t work out, maybe they’re not doing so bad.

“Hair elastic attaches from the paperclip to over your hook,” Henry finishes. “And then when you move it up and down, the toggle moves and your character can walk around the screen or whatever.”

His grin grows – both of their grins – and Henry thinks that it’s the sort of grin that people describe in stories as just – _happy_. Happy.

A little bit crooked and a little bit relieved and a little bit teasing, but honest and sincere.

It’s sort of weird, Henry thinks, that they’ve gotten to the point where Henry can usually tell when Captain Hook isn’t being sincere, based simply on the fact that it’s so out of the norm.

“Okay,” says Henry, and it’s like he can’t stop grinning. Sort of like whenever he watches _Star Wars_ , which they did just last week because they _finally_ had a free moment, and it was just as hilariously amazing as he’d expected. Except that Killian keeps humming the theme song incessantly, in public, but that’s mostly worth it, Henry thinks, just to see the look on Emma’s face when he finally figured out the significance of _Princess Leia_. “Okay, okay, so – plan of action.”

“Right.”

“I’ll go get the hair tie from upstairs, you do the dishes, then we try this bad boy out.”

Killian stops him halfway out of his seat.

“Ah-ah-ah.”

“Ugh,” says Henry. “I totally thought that’d work.”

Killian grins, and raises his stupid eyebrows, and nudges him towards the sink. 

(Henry manages to put exactly two plates in the dishwasher before the hair ties are found, and Emma gets home a half hour early right as Killian and Henry are testing out the effectiveness of their new contraption, expressions of rapt concentration on their faces.

After the third successful toggle maneuver, the hair tie snaps off the hook and whizzes towards the door, conveniently at the exact moment that Emma opens it, and they barely have time to wince before the yelp of “Jesus Christ!” is heard from the front of the hall.

Emma stands stiff in the doorway, hands raised up above her, and squints at them. And then at the still-mostly-full sink.

“Huh,” she says.

“I’ll buy you new hair ties,” Henry blurts, but beside him, Killian starts laughing, a full-bodied, rich sort of sound. 

Maybe they’re not that bad at doing things right, after all.)


End file.
